is there any special functionality assigned to the three dot ellipsis symbol ( … )

[newbie-02]

hi,

learned some time ago that there is a special symbol “…” different from three sequential separate dots! “…” which is often not spotted and has special functionality?

e.g. in one calcsheet at bug tdf#105314 this symbol being used in nearly all cells is suspected the reason why one cell having three dots instead not being found by filtering,

and when i just tried to paste the ellipsoid in a calc sheet, then a space and a second paste of that symbol, the space made the first symbol selected and overpasted, in a second attempt the first symbol disappeared on typing the space, thus getting “… " and " …” instead of “… …” ??? but not reproducible,

because the filter problem was also irregular - after exchanging the contents of the suspicious cell with another one, the previously irregular cell continued to be filtered out ???

i feel motivated to ask here if the symbol has any special functionality in calc or in windows or in general that prevents it from being used as a ‘normal’ character and which i should be aware of …

tia for any help,

P.S. in most fonts the ellipsis symbol is smaller than three separate dots, in the filtering bug it’s the other way around! hard to spot …

[ajlittoz]

U+002E FULL STOP and U+2026 HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS are two different characters. The ellipsis is a guarantee that the sequence will never be broken by line wrap. Ellipsis (single-character string) is not the same as 3 dots (3-character string) where line wrap may occur anywhere.

Apart from this typographic aspect, there is no special meaning for ellipsis. The referenced bug may be a corner case in the filter engine.

I can’t comment on your pasting issue because ther is not enough information (what is selected when you paste or type? Do you paste over a cell or part of text in the formula bar?

Wrt to your PS: with proportional fonts, ellipsis is usually wider than 3 dots; with monospace fonts, the ellipsis is as wide as any other character, i.e. as wide as dot; consequently 3 dots are three times as wide as an ellipsis.

[newbie-02]

@ajlittoz: thanks, found some add. info in wikipedia, will keep my eyes open for further irregularities …

[LeroyG]

The issue could arise with autocorrect in M$ Office: When filling with dots (… are converted to …), and could be ……. (two ellipsis and one point).

[newbie-02]

@LeroyG: with standard settings LO also replaces … exotic stuff … which normal user has knowledge about ‘ellipsis’? … hard to spot … making problems in calc as autofilter doesn’t differentiate on setting of the definition, but on applying …

[LeroyG]

Oh, I always disable autocorrect.

[ajlittoz]

@newbie-02: many users know about ellipsis because it is considered an atomic punctuation in many languages. And like any punctuation it should never be separated (by line wrap) from its preceding word or symbol. In case there is a space between the word and ellipsis, this space should have attribute “non-breaking”.

[newbie-02]

@ajlittoz: i keep learning